THE FRENCH FACE MEDIOCRITY

The strikes, the bitter debates and the political battles that gripped France last week could not alone explain the nation's unusually somber mood. When Georges Pompidou succeeded Charles de Gaulle three months ago, his countrymen were ready for a good long vacation. Except for the jolt of the franc's devaluation, they got it. But as the schools reopened, as the Chamber of Deputies resumed business in earnest, as "the season" in Paris began, 50 million Frenchmen were suddenly confronted with the sad fact that, from now on, their country is likely to play in the world a role greatly diminished from the one they had been led to expect. Reports TIME Correspondent Friedel Ungeheuer:

PARTLY, of course, France's self-doubts derive from the departure of Charles de Gaulle, with his towering figure and lofty rhetoric. The general gave his people visions of glory and grandeur. He prodded them to compete on a superpower scale--as builders of rockets, proprietors of an independent nuclear force, dispensers of foreign aid, and shapers of an all-embracing world strategy. Now comes Pompidou with his promise to turn France into "Sweden, with a little more sunshine."

To an extent, the new President offered that pledge in response to the demands of French voters, who during last spring's election campaign seemed to want nothing so much as a descent from the Gaullist heights. But the idea that Frenchmen would settle for such a passive role plainly grated on Pompidou. Perhaps France could have happiness and honor, gratification and glory? Nowhere did Pompidou express that view more trenchantly than at Ajaccio, Corsica, birthplace of Napoleon. Marking the bicentennial of Napoleon's birth last month, Pompidou pointed out: "In fact, he did not find happiness and, let me add, never bestowed it on France. However, despite the lack of happiness, he attained the pinnacles of grandeur, and endowed France with it to such a point that ever since our people have not resigned themselves to mediocrity and always answered the appeal to honor." Continued Pompidou, in an obvious reference to De Gaulle: "Our most recent history was a striking demonstration of this, once more thanks to the action of an exceptional man."

The retirement of that exceptional man has forced Frenchmen to examine their problems--economic, social and cultural--in a new and often unflattering light. They have found that De Gaulle's visions, however enchantingly phrased, obscured some serious shortcomings. As a result, the nation feels suddenly, and uncomfortably, second-rate. "Mediocrity," says a young Gaullist deputy, "can be enriching, even enjoyable, but mediocre nevertheless."

The most dramatic reminder of France's reduced role was the 12 1/2% devaluation of the franc, which has forced some unfavorable economic comparisons not only with the U.S., but also with West Germany or even The Netherlands and Italy. France's showcase industries remain a pride and a strength. The Caravelle, first of the second-generation jet transports, the famous Mirage jet fighter of Marcel Dassault and the largely French-designed supersonic Concorde testify to the inventiveness of France's aeronautical industry. But for lack of more mundane skills, particularly in the important areas of engineering and middle-echelon management, French products cannot compete with Italian refrigerators and washing machines, Dutch toasters and transistors or West German machine tools. What is more, with 17% of its labor force still working on farms (compared to 11 % for West Germany) and 50% of its exports accounted for by farm products, France simply is not the competitor for world industrial markets that it should be.

Much of the problem lies with France's small shopkeepers, farmers and minor manufacturers, whose narrow views have saddled France with one of the most backward and selfish middle classes in Europe. De Gaulle had a plan to reform this outmoded structure. Just as he broke the resistance of France's colonial army to end the Algerian war, he was intent on breaking the power and influence of its dominant bourgeoisie to end the chasm be tween the monied and working classes. The byword of that campaign, one of the countless phrases that passed from De Gaulle's lips and into the consciousness of all France, was participation. It soon came to mean everything from worker representation on management boards to reducing the hold of small-town notables on local governments by the creation of new regional councils. France's reply, of course, was the non vote in the referendum that forced De Gaulle's exit. With this astounding rebuke from middle-class France to De Gaulle still fresh in his mind, and with immediate problems of economic solvency that must be dealt with, Pompidou may be forced to delay efforts to produce real social reform for some time.

Another Western nation forced to ac cept a reduced vision of its importance is Britain, which managed to make the best of it by agreeing with Malcolm Muggeridge that second-rate powers had "great fun." Britain's new devotion to fun produced Europe's most vigorous theater, practically a new age in popular music and a pop scene that has been emulated the world over. By contrast, the French seem hesitant, even fearful about tapping those resources of the imagination and intellect that once struck the rest of the world as being virtually inexhaustible. They have discovered, for the time being at least, that among the emptiest mantles of grandeur left by De Gaulle was his promise of a cultural renaissance.

France today has no apparent successors to Albert Camus and to Jean-Paul Sartre, who was all but ignored by student rebels in 1968. The art capital of the world has long since moved from Paris to New York, and the Parisian stage is languishing. New works from Alain Robbe-Grillet or from Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, France's best-known young novelist, are still occasions of note, but few other novelists are noted abroad. One exception is France's film makers, especially such directors as Francois Truffaut, Alain Resnais and Swiss-born Director Jean-Luc Godard.

De Gaulle's approach to culture--involving the careful engineering of a creative resurgence--was entrusted to Andre Malraux, Western Europe's only Minister of Culture. Malraux's greatest achievements have been largely those of a museum curator--the staging of highly .successful retrospectives (Picasso and Vermeer), the lending of treasures abroad, the sandblasting of Paris' soot-stained architecture. Beyond that, he sought to dot the French provinces with Maisons de la Culture, designed to bring theater and art to outlying cities and towns. While the idea was not without merit, many of the theatrical directors Malraux sent to the provinces proved so anti-Gaullist that he fired them. Even the revered actor-director Jean-Louis Barrault was sacked as director of Paris' Odeon for having turned it over to student dissidents for meetings during the demonstrations of May 1968.

If anything can rescue the French from their battle with mediocrity, it is their strong historic penchant for critical self-reflection. Just before De Gaulle returned to power, an editorial in a small provincial newspaper complained about France's fascination with diminutives. "Everybody wants his petite maison, his petit jardin, his petite femme, and finally his petite retraite," it said. "At this rate we will surely end up as un petit peuple." Part of De Gaulle's magic lay in his ability to lift his countrymen from such petty aspirations --and from such deep self-doubt. Now both appear to be returning more distressingly than ever. No one believes that France, the revolutionary birthplace of modern democracy, has lost all pride and will sink into smug complacency because De Gaulle has gone. Frenchmen have realized, however, that their rating as a nation depends less on one man's words or actions than on their combined deeds.

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